Featured Commoner: David Bollier & ‘Viral Spiral’

11Mar09

The CreativeCommons blog has an excellent interview with David Bollier, author of Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own. Just a few snippets here: “After traveling in the worlds of free software, copyright activism and the commons for nearly ten years – mostly as a policy activist – I became acutely aware of how much of this history was invisible to mainstream political culture. … a large and impressive “digital republic” is already flourishing. There are shared Internet protocols; thousands of free software and open source software programs; Creative Commons licenses that enable sharing and new creativity; countless varieties of online commons from wikis to the blogosphere to social networking; new creative genres like music remixes, video mashups and podcasting; and on and on. … So long as the Internet remains an open-access infrastructure, new commons will keep arising, and growing stronger. As they do, they will empower like-minded citizens to challenge unresponsive institutions and remake the political culture in their own image. This is huge. Developing a new rapprochement between centralized institutions and decentralized commons will take time, and be politically contentious and messy. But I remain optimistic that the viral spiral will be a potent force for improving democratic culture in the years ahead.” Si, grazie, David! [ Read full interview – Check/download ‘Viral Spiral’, released under CC ]